by Bob Woodward
Russia was the story of the day as the U.S. intelligence agencies had concluded that Vladimir Putin had personally directed organized interference in the U.S. election. Foreign interference in presidential politics was espionage at the highest level. The media was in a frenzy. Had Russia put Trump in the White House? Was this Watergate?
Sessions and White House counsel Don McGahn held regular weekly lunches. This week, Rosenstein had been asked to attend.
McGahn and Sessions were, by official title, the legal heavyweights in the new administration. But now, as deputy, Rosenstein was in charge of the highest-profile investigation in the United States. By Justice Department tradition, the deputy attorney general also had day-to-day supervision of the FBI. He arrived at the White House early.
Rosenstein had a third advantage. Since Sessions had recused himself from the Russia inquiry two months earlier, President Trump had furiously and repeatedly raged against his attorney general for not protecting him. Trump was “steaming, raging mad,” noted The Washington Post on March 5.
The disintegration of the Trump-Sessions relationship gave Rosenstein an opening to develop a rapport with the president. A Harvard Law graduate, Rosenstein had been a law-and-order, by-the-book career federal prosecutor for nearly 30 years. He considered himself a “pre–Fox News Republican” because he did not like the hyper-conservatism and what he considered the reflexive pro-Trump coverage.
When Rosenstein moved into the deputy’s office, he noticed a new flat-screen TV. “My God,” he said to himself, “I’m not watching television.” He unplugged it. He also took the little TV that was in the outer office for his assistants and secretary and put it in a closet.
Aware of Trump’s obsessive TV watching, he thought he would like to advise the president, “Turn off the TV and run the country.”
Just days earlier, FBI director James Comey had briefed Rosenstein in the department command center on the Top Secret Russia investigation, codenamed Crossfire Hurricane. The FBI had four open cases on Trump campaign aides. The investigation was 10 months old and was moving too slowly, Comey had said.
“There’s one more shoe to drop,” Comey said, “and that is whether Attorney General Sessions made false statements.” Sessions had met with the Russian ambassador despite having said at his confirmation hearing that he’d had no contact with Russians.
Rosenstein immediately pushed back and said he was not sure whether the legal standard applied here. Sessions’s discussion with the ambassador was incidental and brief, not of substance, and he had plausibly claimed he did not remember the contact.
David Laufman, a senior offical in the National Security Division, who was also at the briefing, was astonished that Rosenstein defended Sessions so openly. Laufman noticed that others in the room visibly registered surprise.
Possibly more important, Rosenstein had concluded by the end of Comey’s briefing that the Russia investigation so far did not seem to be about Trump personally, but about his aides. Comey had said the president was not technically under investigation.
As Rosenstein saw it, Crossfire Hurricane was instead focused on what Russia had done to meddle in the election—its actions, operations and purpose. The investigation’s second focus was on those in Trump’s circle who seemed to have lied about their contacts with Russian officials. The amount of lying was extensive. Comey—and now Rosenstein—were deeply suspicious. Why so many lies? Something or many somethings were being concealed. Rosenstein found all this sinister.
At the White House luncheon that May 8, McGahn told Rosenstein that Trump was planning to fire Comey.
Rosenstein was not surprised. On the last day of November 2016, Sessions, then still a senator from Alabama and Trump’s pick for attorney general, had invited Rosenstein to his office. Sessions wanted to recruit Rosenstein. Sessions said the administration would need “a fresh start” at the FBI.
Now, six months later, Rosenstein, who at Harvard Law had been a member of the conservative Federalist Society, felt comfortable with Trump’s apparent decision. In Rosenstein’s strong view, the president had the power to fire anyone he wanted. Article II of the Constitution said unambiguously, “The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” Not the cabinet, not the White House staff, not the National Security Council, not the Justice Department.
Sessions arrived at the White House and the lunch with McGahn began. Comey was the main and only course, Rosenstein quickly saw. Sessions angrily alleged that the FBI director leaked derogatory information to the media about Sessions himself.
That was plausible, Rosenstein knew, because he had heard Comey say Sessions might have made a false statement.
White House chief of staff Reince Priebus ran into the room, seeming very jittery. He wanted to know how they could expedite the removal of Comey. “We’ve got to get this done,” Priebus said. Clearly Trump was on the warpath. Comey had to be ousted now.
Nothing was resolved at the lunch. But the heat was on.
* * *
At 5:00 p.m. the same day, Rosenstein was again called to the White House, this time for a meeting with Trump and Sessions. Rosenstein could see firsthand how Trump was obsessed with Comey.
Trump said that Comey had privately told him three times that he was not personally under investigation in the Russia probe. Why would Comey not say this publicly? Trump asked. What was going on? How could this be happening?
Rosenstein thought the president had a point. If he was not under investigation—and Rosenstein knew from Comey that he wasn’t at this point—then perhaps, given the president’s unique status as head of the executive branch, a statement should be made.
But the FBI did not like to say publicly when someone was not under investigation, for technical, traditional and frankly ass-covering reasons. In part, this was because someone might come under investigation later on. Then how to correct the record?
This was more than a squirrelly bureaucratic dance. It gave the FBI and prosecutors great leverage as they interviewed witnesses. These witnesses and their lawyers knew the tables could turn quickly if someone was not forthcoming.
In the May 8 meeting, Trump did most of the talking and would not take his laser focus off of Comey. Rosenstein saw no coherent train of thought, no logical or organized presentation of the issues, alternatives or possible consequences. No moment of concluding, here’s how the decision will be made—let alone, here’s the decision.
Rosenstein was new to White House meetings and the private Trump, so he kept quiet. He was astounded how the president’s rambling monologue continued in every way but a straight line. He found it important, though, that Trump did not say he wanted to get rid of the Russia investigation—he wanted to get rid of Comey.
Should Comey be given a chance to resign voluntarily? asked a deputy White House counsel.
McGahn agreed he should.
Rosenstein thought that was reasonable, but stayed quiet.
Trump said he had been working for days on a termination letter to send to Comey, and had personally dictated it to his aide Stephen Miller. “Have you seen my letter?” the president asked Rosenstein.
No.
“Madeleine,” Trump called out to his special assistant, Madeleine Westerhout, who sat right outside the Oval Office. “Bring in the letter.”
Rosenstein started to read:
“Dear Director Comey, While I greatly appreciate your informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation concerning the fabricated and politically-motivated allegations of a Trump-Russia relationship with respect to the 2016 Presidential Election, please be informed that I, along with members of both political parties and, most importantly, the American Public, have lost faith in you as the Director of the FBI and you are hereby terminated.”
Trump continued talking nonstop—loud, emphatic and angry. Rosenstein struggled to read the letter and also pay attention. He looked down to read and then up to pay attention to th
e president, whose urgency only increased. Up, down, up, down.
The letter was four pages of stream-of-consciousness grievance—Comey’s refusal just five days prior in public congressional tes-timony to say the president was not a target of the Russia investigation, his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, and his alleged failure to hold leakers accountable.
“I don’t think it is a good idea to send this letter,” Rosenstein said. He didn’t think the letter showed criminal intent on Trump’s part to sidetrack the Russia investigation by firing the FBI director, but Comey’s removal would no doubt trigger suspicions. He also thought the scattershot nature of Trump’s draft letter showed a disturbed mind.
“Well,” Trump asked, “what do you think?”
Firing Comey would be fully justified, Rosenstein said, on the single issue of his handling of the Clinton email investigation. In July 2016, Comey had usurped the Justice Department’s role and declared the investigation over, then publicly and harshly condemned Clinton for “extremely careless” handling of “very sensitive, highly classified information.” The FBI was not supposed to issue judgments.
This alone had undermined confidence in the FBI, Rosenstein said, and that could be restored by removing Comey.
Trump liked that. You write that in a memo to Jeff, who will send it to me with a recommendation, he said. “And then I’ll fire Comey.” Here was a path. Trump was suddenly organized, linear and decisive. “Put the Russia stuff in,” he added, clearly meaning that Comey had three times said the president was not under investigation. Trump said he wanted the memo the next morning.
Rosenstein was back at Justice about 6:00 p.m.
“The president is going to fire Comey,” he told his staff. He told them to assemble a critique of the FBI director.
Now he had to write a memo. “I’m a lawyer,” Rosenstein said. “I can write.” It was going to be a long night. Someone ordered pizza.
Comey’s closing out the email investigation in public was unprecedented, Rosenstein wrote. “I do not understand his refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken.” Rosenstein cited the public condemnation of Comey by attorneys general and their deputies who had served in Republican and Democratic administrations.
“The director laid out his version of the facts for the news media as if it were a closing argument, but without a trial. It is a textbook example of what federal prosecutors and agents are taught not to do.”
Rosenstein wrote until 3:00 a.m. He came back into the office at 7:30 a.m. the next day, May 9, and reviewed the memo with Scott Schools, associate deputy attorney general and ethics adviser. “I want you to flyspeck this,” Rosenstein said. It had to be 100 percent accurate. Schools merely suggested a few edits and found a grammatical mistake.
“I’m not sure the White House is going to like this,” Rosenstein said. The memo was very sympathetic to Clinton, painting her as a victim abused by Comey. Rosenstein believed he would have written the same memo if Clinton were president.
“Where’s the memo?” McGahn asked in a 10:00 a.m. phone call to Rosenstein. The president was ready—and impatient—to act.
Still working on it. At noon, McGahn called again.
“I’ve sent it up to Sessions,” Rosenstein said. He assumed that Trump knew how to fire someone.
At 1:00 p.m. Sessions had his chief of staff, Jody Hunt, send the Rosenstein memo, headed “Restoring Public confidence in the FBI,” to the White House with Sessions’s endorsing cover letter.
Comey was in Los Angeles speaking at a Diversity Agent Recruitment event.
“COMEY FIRED,” he read on the TV screen along a back wall. He thought it was a well-designed joke at first, and then he understood it wasn’t.
He reached Andrew McCabe, his deputy—now the acting director. I must have really hosed something up, Comey said.
McCabe, an intense 21-year FBI veteran, was floored. He revered Comey, though he thought the director had seriously overreached on the Clinton email investigation.
Soon McCabe got word that the president wanted to see him at 6:30 p.m.
Sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, Trump said that he had great hopes for McCabe as acting director. As for a permanent director, Trump said, we’re going to get somebody great—it might even be you.
* * *
“FBI Director James Comey Is Fired by Trump,” read one headline on the New York Times website that night. “In Trump’s Firing of James Comey, Echoes of Watergate,” read another. The news was splashed across the front pages in banner headlines the next morning.
Many legal scholars noted that while the president does have the power to fire any official, he may not do so for a corrupt or illegal purpose. To some, Comey’s firing seemed to come close to the line.
The White House put out a statement saying the Comey firing was Rosenstein’s idea.
Rosenstein could not believe the Comey firing was all being put on him. About 8:00 p.m. he spoke with McGahn. “Don, it’s not true. It’s preposterous. I may have to testify. I may have to resign.” He reminded McGahn that President George W. Bush had fired eight U.S. attorneys in December 2006 ostensibly for their performance but, as it turned out, for political reasons. Trump had “the authority to do this,” Rosenstein said, “but you’ve got to tell the truth about the reasoning.”
McGahn said he agreed.
Rosenstein made it clear he did not want to join in putting out a “false story.”
Trump called Rosenstein. The president had been watching Fox News and the coverage had been great. Rosenstein ought to have a press conference.
No, Rosenstein said, he did not think that was a good idea. If asked, he would have to truthfully say the Comey firing was not his idea.
* * *
The next morning, Wednesday, May 10, at the FBI, McCabe convened a series of meetings designed to protect the Russia investigation and make sure it was on solid footing. Were there any individuals that the FBI had identified on whom they should consider opening new cases?
In the middle of this review, the president called McCabe. McCabe recounted the conversation in his 2019 book, The Threat:
It’s Don Trump, he said.
Hello, Mr. President, how are you?
Boy, it’s incredible, Trump said, how really happy people are that Comey had been ousted. I have received hundreds of messages from FBI people saying how delighted they are. Have you seen that? Are you seeing that too?
McCabe believed that Comey was a beloved and revered figure at the FBI, and people were upset, not delighted. He wrote that many at the FBI were in tears and compared the firing to “a death in the family. The death of a patriarch, a protector.” But McCabe did not want to say any of this to the president and contradict him.
In a burst of emotional prose, McCabe wrote, “We felt as if we’d been cast onto the dustheap. We were laboring under the same dank, gray shadow of uncertainty and bleak anxiety that had been creeping over so much of Washington during the few months Donald Trump had been in office.”
Still on the phone, Trump talked about how upset he was that Comey had flown home on his government plane from Los Angeles. How did that happen?
The FBI lawyers approved, McCabe said, and the plane had to come back with Comey’s protection detail anyway. So McCabe had given the go-ahead.
Trump flew off the handle. That’s not right! I don’t approve of that! That’s wrong! It seemed that the president repeated himself at least five times, perhaps seven.
I’m sorry you disagree, McCabe said, but that was my decision.
I want you to look into that! The president ordered. Will Comey be allowed in the FBI headquarters building to get his personal stuff?
His staff, McCabe said, would pack his personal belongings and take them to his home.
I don’t want him in the building! Trump ordered. I’m banning him from the building. I don’t want him in FBI buildings.
McCabe let Trump’s r
anting spiral on.
How is your wife? Trump asked. Jill McCabe, a pediatric physician, had run unsuccessfully for the state Senate in Virginia in 2015 as a Democrat. The Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe, a close friend and fundraiser for Bill and Hillary Clinton, had directed $467,500 from his political action committee to her campaign. The Virginia Democratic Party, effectively controlled by McAuliffe, gave her $207,788. That was a lot of money for a state Senate campaign. Trump had previously tweeted about this and insinuated some conspiracy.
Jill was fine, McCabe said.
How did she handle losing? the president asked. Is it tough to lose?
It’s tough to lose anything, McCabe answered. She had rededicated herself to taking care of kids in the emergency room.
That must’ve been really tough, Trump said in what sounded like a sneer. To be a loser. Shifting dramatically, the president said, You’ll do a good job. He said he had a lot of faith in McCabe.
* * *
McCabe wrote a contemporaneous memo recounting the exchange with the president, filling three quarters of a page. McCabe knew Comey had written many contemporaneous memos to record his own meetings and calls with Trump. The memos clearly showed that Comey was convinced the president was dishonest, corrupt and possibly attempting to obstruct justice.
Neither Comey nor McCabe had told Rosenstein about the memos and their deep suspicions of Trump.
EIGHT
On May 11, two days after Comey was fired, Rosenstein was surprised to read a story on the New York Times website headlined, “In a Private Dinner, Trump Demanded Loyalty. Comey Demurred.”
The remarkable story reported that Trump had a private one-on-one dinner with Comey on January 27, seven days into the Trump presidency. The president asked for a personal pledge of loyalty, the story said, attributing it to two people who had heard Comey’s account of the dinner.
